Old Tapes work new ones don't

I have the correct new tapes. They successfully allow me to inventory, erase, name and catalog them. Unfortunately, none of them (I've tried two different batches) will backup. I receive "Data error - (cyclic redundancy check (V-79-57344-34028))". The media becomes listed as "not appendable (end marker unreadable)" even though the media-set properties is configured for infinitely appendable.The old tapes (3 years old) still work perfectly.Could this be a hardware problem?

1 Answer

I'm having this exact same issue and according to the DELL tech it is common. What I had to do is keep using the tapes until they started passing. I bought 2 brand new cleaning tapes and ran two cleaning jobs before it would pass. My daily tapes are passing, and after several retrys my weekly tapes are passing. Since my Monthly tapes occur so infrequently, I'm just taking one of the Daily tapes out of the rotation and using a Monthly tape until it passes. It's either this or buy a new tape drive.

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Water is a great damaging factor for tape drives. I know you can disassemble the drive (almost) complete and clean everything you can see. Not only should all moving parts and rollers guiders be cleaned, but also the logic boards and the cables and connectors. You are not allowed to remove any of the rolling parts, because you wont be able to readjust them without calibration tools. Then it should be reassembled after cleaning. Also use a cleaning tape several times, to remove all residue of the cleaning fluid. There is special cleaning fluid for things with water damage, but the heads and guiding system can be cleaned with clean alcohol (no spiritus)

Don't use any of the storage tapes, you have your data on, because you could damage the tapes. In the end, perhaps you have to buy another tape drive, to restore your data so save the tapes, till you are 100% sure the drive won't eat the tapes.

I do not think this is possible. Could you not setup an old win98 pc to restore the data and then back it up again onto a new tape drive?
120MB tapes are so old now i doubt they are very reliable.
I think we have a Jumbo Tracker 700 in stock if you think that might help at all?Refurbished Tape Drives Stock List for download Refurbished LTO drive

If the machine hasn't been altered in all those years, retrieving the data shouldn't be a problem. If I remember correctly from my days with one of those, the driver software made the tape drive appear as any other drive in Windows so it was just a matter of copying data to and from the drive just like any other hard drive in the system.

Besides buying a new one, if you have the knowledge, you can try to open the tape drive and clean it from the dust it may have. You should also clean all the rubber roller's that thouch the tape (when it is inserted) with a cotton swab with some alcohol.

Sounds a bit strange - I've seen this happen when tapes are re-used in a different drive but not when re-used in the same drive. You could try degaussing (magnetically wiping) the tapes. This should effectively make them appear as new ones.

Same problem with Backup Exec 10d and Superloader 3 LTO-3.
This is not my first problem with this Superloader. I think it is garbage and will likely be in the garbage very soon. Very expensive garbage unfortunately.